Peter Declan is innocent

The same evening as the shooting Oliver carried the injured Diggle to his hideout and gave him the antidote to the curare he was poisoned with when one of Deadshots stray bullets hit him.

Once Diggle awakes hours later Oliver offers him to partner up with him, revealing that he's the hood in the process. Diggle turns down his offer, judging Oliver for his ruthless actions as the hood.

After Diggle left Oliver makes his way home. Once he arrives there he looks for his family and finds his mother sitting in the living room.

"Mom, are you OK did you all get out alright?" He asks her.

"My god, where were you?" Moira asks concerned going over to him and checking if he's injured.

"Diggle thought it'd be safer to wait things out, so we stayed low for a while." Oliver lies.

"Good, good." Moira says relieved.

"So where is everybody?" Oliver questions.

"Walter is with the police, giving his statement and Thea is with her friend in the hospital." Moira tells him.

"Wait, Thea is in the hospital?" Oliver asks panicking.

"She's staying with I think Ryan is his name, he got shot when he shielded her from a bullet by that shooter." She explains.

"Oh, I remember him. Laurel's co-worker, right? Did they treat him for curare?" Oliver asks hurriedly.

"I assume so, Walter and I left Thea after the doctors said he's safe." Moira replies.

"Oh, good then. Will she be OK there or do you want me to get Thea home?" Oliver says.

"No, she'll be fine. Plus Laurel called a few minutes ago, she's watching over her and Ryan. She arrived at the hospital not too long ago herself." Moira informs him.

|three days later|

Oliver wakes up startled, having had another nightmare about his time on the Isle.

He makes his way to the living room and sits down next to Thea who's also up watching a news report.

"Couldn't sleep either?" Thea asks her brother.

"Nope, what are you watching?" Oliver replies looking at the TV.

"Peter Declan. The guy who killed his wife. Right, so this guy killed his wife in his babies room, psycho." Thea explains after seeing her brothers clueless look.

"So why can't you sleep?" Thea asks muting the TV.

"Bad dreams." He replies.

"About?" Thea inquires.

"Laurel." Oliver replies.

"So why don't you make a play? I mean she did come over here the other day to make sure you didn't get shot." Thea tells him.

"There are reasons." Oliver says.

"What are they? Besides you sleeping with her sister and her sister dying and her father hating your guts and you being a jerk to basically everybody sine you've been back." Thea says.

"Those are the top ones." Oliver confirms.

"I know that it might not seem like it sometimes, but I I'm not the same person I used to be." Oliver says.

"So show her. Be yourself, I mean your new self." Thea suggests, making Oliver think about it.

|The next morning|

"How did you sleep?" Moira asks Oliver as he walks into the living room.

"Just fine, thank you. We have a visitor." Oliver replies looking at the man in a suit standing a few feet away from his mother who is reading the papers on the couch.

"Mr. Diggles replacement." Moira tells him.

"replacement?" Oliver questions surprised.

"Yes, he handed his resignation in this morning." Moira tells him.

"Did he say why?" Oliver asks.

"He said he didn't approve of the way you spent your evenings. Particularly that they always begin with you ditching him." Moira replies.

"Hi, Mr. Queen. Rob Scott." The new bodyguard introduces himself.

Oliver greets him and then turns on the TV's volume and hears that the victims wife worked for Jason Brodeur. Someone who is on his late fathers list.

Oliver then ditches his bodyguard and goes to his lair, where he researches Declan's case.

He quickly comes to the conclusion that Jason Brodeur is setting up Peter Declan, to cover up that he had his wife killed. Oliver decides to get Declan the only lawyer he can count on to do the right thing, Laurel.

That evening Oliver, dressed in his costume breaks into Laurel's place and waits for her there.

Once Laurel opens her door she flips the light switch only for it to not work, suspecting foul play Laurel cautiously enters her home and goes over to a cabinet near the door, fetching a gun, which she quickly aims at Oliver, who is standing behind her a few feet away.

"Hello Laurel." He greets her talking with a voice modulator.

"Don't move." Laurel threatens him, aiming her gun at him.

"I'm not gonna hurt you." Oliver tells her, putting his bow down on a table.

"My father is a cop, you're making a huge mistake." Laurel tells him.

"I'm not the person you think I am and I need your help. Peter Declan is gonna be executed in 48 hours and I think he's innocent. Declans wife was going to blow the whistle on Jason Brodeur, Brodeur had her murdered." Oliver tells her.

"There are three thousand lawyers in Starling City, why me?" Laurel asks him.

"Because we're both trying to help." Olvier replies walking over to her and putting her gun down while he stands behind her.

"What makes you so sure I'm gonna help you?" Laurel asks.

"Cause I know you'd do anything to safe the life of an innocent man." Oliver tells her and vanishes.

Lurel then visits Declan in the prison the next day and questions him, hearing the same exact story the vigilante told her yesterday evening.

After her visit to the prison she visits her father, asking him about the case since he was the lead detective on the case and finds the lead, being the supervisors name.

While Laurel is doing this Oliver visits Diggle at the diner Diggle's sister in law works and offers Diggle to work together, to help the town and to find his brothers killer, the sniper Oliver stopped before.

In the meantime Moira lies to her husband, telling him that the missing 2,6 million dollars he discovered were an investment in a friends start-up but he asks Felicity to look into the missing money anyways.

"You really are putting a lot of hours into this Declan case aren't you. You really think he's innocent, don't you?" Joanna asks Laurel, when she is doing overtime to look over some files.

"Someone does." Laurel replies, handing Ryan, who's helping her another file.

"So you said, but you didn't say who." Joanna says.

"The guardian angel." Laurel tells her in a whisper.

"The hood, you`re kidding?" Joanna asks disbelieving.

"He tracked me down and asked me to look into the case." Laurel tells her.

"You've met him?" Joanna asks at which Laurel nods. At this point Ryan gets up from his seat and goes over to them asking "What the fuck Laurel, you had a chat with the hood?" worried about her.

"He stands against everything I believe in. He breaks the law and god knows what else." Laurel continues, ignoring her brother for now.

"How do you know that he's not gonna do god know what to you?" Joanna questions.

"Listen to Joanna, she's right." Ryan agrees.

"He won't. I don't know, I can feel it." Laurel tells them.

"When I told you, you should meet someone, this is far, far from what I meant." Joanna tells her and leaves the two siblings alone.

"Listen, I know I can't stop you once you've got your mind set on something, but I can try to minimize the risk, so whenever you talk to him I want to be there or I'm going to tell your dad." Ryan tells her decisively.

"I got your message. Is there a reason we can't do this face to face?" Laurel asks meeting the hood on a roof top with Ryan standing behind her with his arms crossed disapprovingly.

"What is he doing here?" Oliver asks sounding annoyed.

"I'm her safety-line." Ryan says eyeing the robin hood lookalike.

"You've met with Peter Declan?" Oliver asks Laurel.

"You were right, he might be innocent. He said his wife accused Brodeur the day she was murdered.

"Then we need to get whoever she told to testify." Oliver says walking around, making Ryan look at him cautiously and step in front of his sister.

"He already has. Matt Istook, Camille's supervisor." She tells him.

"He could be lying." Oliver says.

"Then he is very convincing he got questioned by Jury and police." Laurel says.

"He hasn't been questioned by me." Oliver tells her.

"I didn't become a lawyer to break the law." Laurel says.

"I do what's necessary, what people like Peter Declan need." Oliver tells her.

"If what you're doing isn't wrong then why are you hiding your face?" Laurel asks.

"To protect the people I care about." Oliver replies.

"That sounds lonely." Laurel says.

"It can be." Oliver says and leaves by swinging off the roof on a rope from an arrow he shot into a wall.

Oliver finds the supervisor and threatens his life until he gets him proof of Brodeurs wrong doings. The supervisor tells him where a file incriminating Brodeur is hidden and Oliver collects it, bringing it to Laurel a few hours later.

"Compliments of Matt Istook." Oliver says throwing the file onto her desk while he shut the power off to the room.

"What's in here?" Laurel asks.

"Leverage on Jason Brodeur, enough to safe Peter Declan's life." He says.

"Man you work fast." Ryan says looking at the man, sitting on the desk next to his sister.

"As an attorney I would've never gotten a file like this, I always thought the law is sacred." Laurel says looking the file over.

"And now Laurel, what do you think?" Oliver asks.

"I think there are too many people in this city who only think about themselves, who are selfish. And we need someone who cares about the lives of other people, someone like you." Laurel tells him.

"Just for the record, our opinions on this are different." Ryan says pointing between himself and Laurel.

"Then why are you here?" Oliver asks.

"To keep her safe, why else?" Ryan says.

|Next morning CNRI|

Quentin Lance walks into the bullpin in Laurel's office and goes over to her desk. "You know it is funny that Matt Istook, said the hood attacked him last night and I think that's funny because I just gave my daughter that very name. Were you in on this?" Quentin says, asking Ryan the last part.

"I tried to talk her out of it, I only acted as a bodyguard." Ryan defends himself.

"He's a vigilante, a damn criminal and working with him makes you an accessory." Quentin tells her.

"I'm trying to safe an innocent man's life." Laurel says justifying herself.

"No, you're breaking the law." Quentin argues.

"I wouldn't have to if the police had done it right in the first place." Laurel tells him.

"So when I asked you why you took this case you lied right to your face, I thought you and I don't do that." Quentin says disappointed and looks at Ryan telling him "and you, you should've told me."

"Hey either I tell you or I go with her to keep her safe." Ryan replies and Quentin leaves.

Laurel then meets with a judge and tries to move the execution day until the file's been taken into consideration but gets shot down.

Brodeur is panicking because Laurel threatens to expose him and his men tell him that they've got a plan to kill Laurel, when she's meeting Declan in Iron Heights.

Laurel and Ryan meet the hood that same evening and she explains the situation.

"We're not done yet." Oliver replies.

"I'm an attorney, trust me we're done." Laurel replies.

"What do you need to free Peter Declan?" Oliver asks.

"At this point, an signed confession from Brodeur." Laurel tells him and Oliver takes off, telling her "I'll get the confession."

Oliver quickly finds Brodeur and is threatening him with his bow and shoots him through his hand, when Brodeurs phone rings.

"Answer it." Oliver says.

"What?" Brodeur asks into the phone.

"It's going down in an hour." A voice says and Oliver turns the phone off.

"What's going down in an hour?" He asks aggressively.

"Let's just say Peter Declan's execution, it's getting moved up." Brodeur tells him and Oliver knocks him out before he hurries over to the Prison, where Declan is talking to Laurel and Ryan.

Once he arrives at the Prison Oliver steals a guards uniform and puts it on along with a ski mask and enters the prison, looking for Declan.

Elsewhere in the prison one of Brodeur's men infiltrated the prison by paying off a guard and tells him to release some prisoners, hoping they kill Declan, having set a price on his head but enters the prison just to be safe either way.

Laurel, Declan and Ryan hear the alarm go off and the guard assigned to them gets called into another block and tells them to stay there.

Th three go to the door, trying to ask him what's going on and see a guard getting killed by the inmates on the opposite site where their guard ran off to.

The three then run down the corridor and arrive to see their guard get knocked out by two escaped prisoners. One of them raises a gun at the two, when he gets shot down by an arrow.

"Let's go." Oliver tells them and leads them down a corridor, knocking out two of the guys chasing them. They see a team with riot shields come towards them and Oliver leads them into another room of to the side, where he gets surprised by Brodeurs man punching him in the face and one of his men starting to hit him with a pipe. Brodeur then knocks out Declan and grabs Laurel and throws her against a mesh fence and then onto the floor, starting to choke her. Ryan sees this and tackles the larger man off his sister and uses a move he's learned in his mma fighting classes to pin the mans arms to the ground by stepping on one while he kneels on the other arms elbow and starts to furiously punch the man in the face, knocking him out after the second or third punch but in his rage he continues on hitting him. While this is going on Laurel sees a barrel of a gun aimed at her curtesy of the other man but he falls down lifelessly when Oliver gets up behind the man and twists his neck, snapping it.

"Ryan stop." Laurel shouts panicking upon seeing her brother-figure punch at her attackers face, with his fist dripping with blood.

Laurel peels Ryan off the man and looks at the hood scared. In that moment the guards come rushing in and secure the two of them while Olvier escapes and the guards arrest the two unconscious men.

Once Ryan and Laurel are out of the prison Quentin is already waiting for them concerned and Laurel runs over to him, while Ryan walks over slowly as well, having hurt himself in his beatdown and opened his wound on the shoulder.

"I'm alright." Laurel says calming down her father to some degree.

"You sure?" He asks.

"I'm sorry for what I said to you before." Laurel says.

"You were right, Brodeurs bodyguard confessed to Declan's murder, but listen to me you are wrogn about this guy, he's outside the law." Quentin tells her.

"I know, he's a killer." Laurel says while Oliver watches them saddened.

"So, is there an EMT not busy somewhere?" Ryan asks jokingly as he goes over to the two, pressing a towel to his opened wound.

"My god son, what happened to you? You look like you've been cage fighting again." Quentin asks concerned, looking over Ryan's injuries.

"Feels like it too." Ryan replies with a smirk.

"Come on, sit down, I'll get somebody." Quentin tells him, letting Ryan sit on the hood of his car.

"What happened back there?" Laurel asks Ryan.

"What do you mean?" Ryan asks.

"I mean you kept hitting the guy even though you must've known he was down after the first two hits." Laurel asks him.

"I don't know, I just saw you hurt and lost it." Ryan tells her.

"You sure you're OK?" Laurel asks him.

"Yes, I've been through worse and you know it." Ryan tells her.

"Doesn't mean I like it." She replies.

"Still, having a competent fighter at hand is really handy ain't it?" Ryan asks grinning at her only for her to lightly shove his hurt shoulder, making him wince.

"That explains why he thought he can protect Laurel from the hood. I better watch out not to land on the wrong side of his fist." Oliver notes to himself and takes off.

After Quentin came back Laurel explains everything that happened and gets Quentin to think about what she says about the hood not wearing his usual costume and he looks at the security footage of the shooting at the exchange building again and he along with his partner see Oliver get some bag in a staircase with a hood in it and gets a warrant for his arrest.

Once Oliver gets up the next day he sees Diggle waiting for him in their living room and Diggle agrees to work with him, if only to help him safe himself, because he knows that Oliver is in way over his head to do this alone.

Shortly afterwards Oliver gets arrested and lead out of his house, right past his scared family.